


the hardest part about being a hero (is making sure no one finds out)

by officiumdefunctorum



Series: Emrys Goes on Holiday [2]
Category: Merlin (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: BAMF Merlin, But not too much crack, Crack, Crossover, Elemental Magic, Future Fic, Gen, Humor, Immortal Merlin, It's not really stalking if you're a spy though, Kinda, Merlin gives no fucks, Merlin likes wine, Sequel, Stalking, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Waiting for Arthur Pendragon, clint is an ungrateful jerk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-13
Updated: 2014-08-13
Packaged: 2018-02-13 02:38:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2133978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/officiumdefunctorum/pseuds/officiumdefunctorum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You rescue a guy <em>one time</em> and this is what happens. Merlin is never going on vacation again.</p><p>Sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/924163">Bussiness as usual, apparently.</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	the hardest part about being a hero (is making sure no one finds out)

**Author's Note:**

> Because Clint Barton was just... there with his bow and arrows. Maybe Merlin rescued him one time, and then Clint stalked him.

Merlin stared morosely at the blinking cursor of the blank document.

Another bloody dissertation.

Not counting the dubiously given title of "doctor" he'd received late in '73—1273 for helping sow some poor bastards back together and being summarily adopted by the woefully ransacked town in the highlands, this would be his seventh PhD.

Honestly, he could have done a brilliant job of forgery and just sat pretty at some community college in Sussex. However, tossing his magic around in the twenty-first century was becoming a worse and worse idea with so many super-powered morons running amok and making it difficult for people who just wanted to be left alone to babysit lakes until the messianic second coming of their long-dead best friends.

It was just easier to write the damn paper and do the bloody research.

Besides, it wasn't like he'd really had all that many opportunities to venture out to... America, at least since the sixteenth century. Seemed like a good place to avoid with the shooting and the civil war and whatnot. There had been a few things he'd have liked to have seen, some people he'd have liked to meet, but, duty had called and all that.

Mostly he was just lazy. And anxious. Lazy and anxious. Christ, he was just a bloody hermit. People could fuck off.

Merlin flopped back on the cushy pillows of his king sized bed with a groan, the screen of his laptop dimming from lack of attention. But he was on vacation! He eyed the phone on the night-stand longingly. It wasn't too early to order in room-service and a bottle of Merlot, was it?

His gaze shifted to the digital clock. 4:12

"It's bloody well five o'clock somewhere," he grumbled to himself, but instead of grabbing the phone he rolled off the bed and padded to the well-stocked mini-bar.

Mixing himself a Manhattan (ha! irony), Merlin's thoughts drifted to the altercation in which he'd stupidly intervened just two days ago.

For the love of all things sacred, why the bloody hell had he gotten himself involved? Stupid, stupid, stupid. He could almost feel the ghost of Gaius slapping him upside the head. Hadn't he had enough of playing the hero in the last millennium?

One less death on his conscience, though. Sometimes it was nice to be able to save someone, especially if doing so meant that the person could go on doing the saving when he went back to his boring life of guardianship.

Merlin sipped his drink with a sigh, opening the curtains to look at the bustling city below.

* * *

 

Standing on the balcony, Merlin sipped glass of wine in hand. His lips fluttered noisily as he hunched over the edge, glaring at the night-life he saw going on below him. People walking and laughing and puttering about with cameras and ridiculous outfits. Clubbing. Being social.

He was really pants at this vacation business. A week in Manhattan and he'd managed to write forty pages of a dissertation and get himself mixed up in an alien powered shootout. And he still hadn't had a decent cup of tea to take the edge off.

Well, the wine did that pretty well, actually. Merlin rolled his eyes at himself and drained the rest of his glass. He stared at it for a moment before turning to head back inside to top it off.

"Bugger, should have brought the— _eep!_ "

The glass crashed to ground, and Merlin flailed his arms when he came face to face with Clint Barton's drawn bow.

"Who are you?"

Rather than answering, Merlin stared in consternation at the bow drawn in his face.

His brain suddenly filled with images of a crossbow and a dead unicorn, and he snapped out of it.

"I'm sorry?" He asked, blinking up at the most immediate threat to his existence. Good thing he was a little slow on the auto-hexing when he was drinking, or Hawkeye here would probably be a houseplant.

"Who. Are. You?" Clint asked, voice low and even. The bow nudged upward a little so it was pointed directly at Merlin's throat, the flat tip of the bladed arrow visible only in its proximity.

Still vaguely mesmerized by the rather antiquated—though distinctly deadly, and rather fetchingly updated—weapon at his throat, Merlin only barely managed his answer.

"Marion?"

"Right. Marion. This is the part where you tell me who you work for."

Snapping out of his projectile-of-death induced haze, Merlin stepped back with an air of indignity, only to be met with the railing and wall of the balcony.

"Excuse me, but I don't think the creepy invading spy is the one who should be asking paranoid questions! The invadee is clearly the one to be demanding answers," he responded with gusto, gesturing with a hand that should have been holding a... _yikes_. Okay. Maybe he should have eased up on that first bottle.

"I have to disagree," Clint responded. "Seemingly inexplicable avoidance of death in the field with persons of unknown origin and affiliation present happens to be highly suspicious and potentially dangerous. I think I have all the rights I need to ask you some questions." The tip of Hawkeye's bow pressed closer, the tiny creaking noise the bow made echoing in Merlin's ears. "Or shoot you."

This was really quite not good.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he mustered a flare of indignity and affront.

"I'm sure you don't," Hawkeye responded, not moving his bow a centimeter.

"Look," Merlin didn't quite huff, though he wanted too, because the blade was dangerously close to actually nicking his skin. "You want to come in for a drink or something? My wine glass has been sent back to god, and I bloody well think I need another if I'm to continue a bizarre conversation with some superhero while I'm on vacation."

The bow didn't budge. "I don't know who you are, Marion, but I'm not an idiot. I know you did something when we were dealing with the weapons collectors, and I intend to find out what it was. Don't get comfortable," Clint pulled back the arrow and hopped over the ledge with barely a flourish of dark colors to indicate he'd been there at all.

"'Don't get comfortable.' Seriously?" Merlin asked aloud, squatting down to pick up his newly whole wine glass. Looking back up over the balcony, he thought he saw a speck of something swinging around and dropping between some buildings. But hell, knowing this city, it could be that guy with the webs.

* * *

 

Finally. _Finally_ he had found some decent tea. It wasn't quite the delightful, fragrant—and frankly, probably illegal—brew he'd been treated to at the cafe outside Stark Tower, but it was hot and the little hole in the wall even had some delicious little scones and Devonshire cream to compliment the cup.

Raising the cup to his face, he inhaled deeply the heavenly scent of the earl grey and closed his eyes before taking a small sip.

Old religion be damned, there was really nothing to soothe his stresses like a good cup of tea. He savored the mouthful with a hum of appreciation before taking another and opening his eyes.

Promptly spraying the mouthful of tea all over the man seated across from him.

"Bloody hell!" He wheezed, choking as his lungs vehemently disagreed with his palate's assessment of the tea's presence in its general vicinity.

Unmistakable, even dressed casually—replete with a ridiculous New York Yankee's ball cap and mirrored aviators obscuring his face—Hawkeye stared at him from the seat opposite his own outside the small cafe.

The archer merely sat there in a deceptively casual slouch, wiping away the tea on his face with a cloth napkin while munching on a scone— _Merlin's_ scone, damn it—while Merlin himself hacked and coughed his way back to coherency. The bastard.

"I hope you're planning on buying me another," he wheezed irritably when his breath returned. By the moons this kid was annoying.

"Wasn't, actually," the man said evenly, taking another bite.

Resisting the urge to set the infuriating twit's ugly hat aflame, Merlin scowled. A drying spell was on the tip of his tongue to rid himself of the tea staining his grey t-shirt, but he snatched the napkin away from Hawkeye to dab at the wetness instead.

"Well aren't you a bloody charmer," he muttered. "Stalking me now, are you?"

Hawkeye shrugged. "Don't have to."

Merlin waited a moment for this idiot's reasoning, but the archer didn't seem inclined to elaborate. With a huff, he eyed the man across from him. "Haven't you something important to be doing? Baddies to be shooting and whatnot," he waved a hand.

"These scones are pretty good," he said, ignoring Merlin's question. "Think I might come here more often."

With a growl of frustration, he tossed the napkin on the table and stood to leave. Obviously he wouldn't be getting any more tea here; bloody fucking ungrateful little brat was ruining absolutely everything even vaguely pleasurable about this vacation. He was definitely going to Iceland if he ever took another in this next century. At least there the locals still treated the Elves with a measure of respect.

"Might even try out that place on 59th!" Hawkeye called after him as he walked away.

Fury coiling in his gut, Merlin's eyes glowed for a moment as he walked away, rewarding him with the sound of Hawkeye crashing to the ground as one of those pesky, unreliable wooden chair legs buckled beneath his weight.

Petty, yet satisfying. A small consolation for losing not one, but two potential tea houses in the space of a couple minutes.

* * *

 

Of all the things he could have picked this time around. Literature, ugh. He'd figured it was a nice change of pace from chemistry, and physics before that—the theoretics in this century were just getting ridiculous—and while it was still awesome and he kept tabs, like hell would he willingly enter that gladiator's arena of publishing.

Really, he'd just figured that a literature PhD would set him up for a series of quiet postings teaching general education classes to bored undergraduates, leaving him with enough time and brain power to maybe have a bit of a life this time around.

Oh, who was he kidding? Merlin had not, and would never have, a life. At least not in the twentieth century valley-girl sense of the word. He'd have done just as well starting up a pub within spitting distance of the lake serving drinks until the nuclear apocalypse killed all his customers.

Pushing the book away from him, he blamed the tenor of his current thoughts on the contents. He should really just stop reading Poe. For that matter, he should stop reading Bradbury. Why had he thought science fiction would be a good focus? Oh, right, because his so called _life_ was a bloody science fiction novel. Write what you know, and all that.

Okay. Maybe it was more Tolkien-esque fantasy, but his magic clearly fell in the realm of the scientifically possible, because it existed. His time with physics had taught him that much. Besides, Tolkien had clearly been getting his sources from aliens and not native Earth magicians, who was he to judge? Frankly, he was still a bit miffed he hadn't picked up on the intergalactic disturbances back when he'd been a 'young warlock', and not Emrys, the _last bastion of great magic_ on Earth.

Peering with bleary eyes at his haphazard stack of notes, he huffed a quiet sigh to himself and stole a glance at his mobile for the time.

Ah, shit. He'd been reading through dinner. Probably dessert, too, now that he considered the emptiness of the library. Glancing around, he wondered idly why no one had come by to kick him out, yet. He was clearly here passed normal hours of operation. Maybe they'd forgotten about him? Was that something that happened to unsuspecting, distracted graduate students in American libraries? They got locked up in dark, dusty libraries overnight as a mocking punishment for the futility of their academic endeavors?

Really seemed like more of an English thing to do, but eh. Since he'd worked through dinner and after-dinner, he'd be remiss if he didn't reward himself with a few drinks before slogging back to his hotel to watch horrible Animal Planet reality shows and fall asleep with his eyes open.

Stretching out the muscles in his back that seemed to have seized with the time spent hunched over the books, he wondered if he shouldn't just skip the pub and raid the mini-bar. Whatever blessed person made his bed whenever he was gone did a marvelous job of restocking it, and it hadn't gone unnoticed that an extra bottle of Riesling had been added to the collection.

Come to think of it, he had no idea who was fixing up his room. But man or woman, he'd be tempted to offer them some mind-blowing oral sex if they kept bringing him wine. It was just the kind of bizarre flirting that perfectly suited his existence.

Somewhere in his brain, something like shame or self-loathing at the prospect of blowing someone because they'd plied him with a few bottles of white wine tried to make itself known, but it was a feeble attempt. Secreted bottles of alcohol was a perfectly valid seduction technique, and Merlin was so very not above rewarding a good intuition, even if they did peg him for white wines. People were just so uptight about drinking, these days. Like taverns hadn't existed before proper hospitals and all that.

On the other hand, it could be that the maid(s) just thought he was a sad, lonely bastard and were just helping him along on his way to an inevitable alcohol fueled stumble over the balcony that would put him out of his misery.

He preferred alcoholic seduction.

It was this line of thought that kept him from noticing the actual eerie emptiness of the library until a muffled noise drew him up short as he packed his things.

Glancing around, he didn't see anything out of place.

"Hello?" He called, wondering if it were maybe one of the interns left to reshelf and close up, waiting until the last possible moment to kick him out. Empty libraries were a bit creepy, after all, he wouldn't have blamed the poor sod. There could be goblins lurking in the dictionaries, for all they knew.

When he received no response, Merlin shrugged it off and continued winding his way through the tall bookcases of the stacks where he'd been holed up for what felt like days. However, with thoughts no longer distracted, his senses tingled when another noise sounded in the stillness of the air around him.

Stopping completely, he breathed in and out slowly, trying to determine if the weird sounds in the creepy, deserted library were intern or foe. Really, though. Who would break into a library that didn't keep expensives, rare texts or anything cool? Not a magical tome to be found. Boring.

Well, a lot of people, probably. Who was he to judge the prospects for library-breakers?

Mildly annoyed that his evening plans of solitary drinking and Crocodile Hunter re-runs were being shoved off because of weird noises in a deserted library, he was sorely tempted to just magic his way to ferreting out the source.

But he couldn't be sure the library was actually empty, and if it wasn't, magicking anything would be a very bad idea. If he could avoid it, he didn't like going all Men in Black with the memory spells; or, on the sad occasions that marked attempts to attack him, detouring into the realm of less light-hearted spy movies.

It wasn't like whoever was in here could actually hurt him, so he may as well make his way to the exit with as little fuss as possible. He could still defend himself without magic perfectly well, thank you very much—like he could actually skate through a millennium of constant hostility without learning to beat people up—so anyone interested in burgling his laptop and all his notes could just shove off.

Then again, maybe they could just have it. Then he wouldn't have to deal with Poe anymore.

Merlin detoured through the reference stacks, ears sharpened to any more sounds that might creep out of the strangely still atmosphere. His magic tingled beneath his skin, knowing more than even his centuries of honed experience that something was off, but damned if he wasn't going to ignore it until it became bloody necessary. Stupid magic was still trying to play the hero even after all the times it had nearly gotten him killed.

The bollocks with the Nazi bombardment still chafed. He really hadn't wanted to try and coax an entire regiment of English soldiers into believing that they'd been shell-shocked into seeing the magical shield—to hell with the part where the magic had saved _him,_ as well. Covering up the effects was just damned inconvenient.

It was with thoughts of continuing to hide his magic that Merlin abruptly ducked and rolled forward as rows upon rows of shelving began toppling inward.

"Bloody hell!" He shouted, scrabbling to the terminal point of the shelves before he was buried under first editions of Encyclopedia Britannicas.

Chest heaving—and shoulder throbbing where something that could only have been an Oxford English Dictionary had clipped him during his scrabble—Merlin reigned in the magic that threatened to seek out and exterminate his unseen threat. Oh, this person was _so_ fucking lucky he was feeling lazy this year, or there wouldn't be so much as a pile of smoldering ash to mark their sorry grave.

Merlin stumbled to his feet with a grimace, eyes darting around in the dingy light to try and see if there was anyone near, but obviously the library was as empty of employees and patrons alike if the ruckus hadn't stirred so much as an interested shout.

Obviously he'd never be coming back to this library; he didn't envy the intern stuck with reshelving this mess.

"Sod this," Merlin grumbled, doubling back the way he came and skirting the wreckage of the tall shelves to try and see what on Earth had done this.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Merlin all but whinged as he inspected the other side of the shelves.

An arrow.

A bloody fucking _arrow_ was sticking out of the top end of a shelf. The bit of cord hanging from it betrayed its purpose as an anchor for whoever—like he didn't already know exactly who the hell had done this—had attempted to bury him in dictionaries for the PhD students to find in the morning.

Turning an eye to a suspiciously open skylight, he didn't so much as glimpse any sign of movement. With a furious growl, Merlin nearly slipped on the piles of books before taking hold of the shaft and yanking it out of the wood. Violently readjusting his messenger bag on his shoulder, he made directly for the entrance with renewed vigor.

The fact that his exit this time was met neither with resistance nor strange sounds probably indicated that he could just make for his hotel and proceed with his evening as planned, but oh, stupid _stupid_ Hawkeye had taken a front seat in his brain and his brain and, coincidentally, his magic, were dead set on finding the asshole and sticking his arrow right up his stupid, spying arse.

Stalking around to the back of the library where he knew the exposed skylight to be, Merlin paced in a small circle, eyes cast up to the rooftops in an effort to catch a sign of the archer anywhere nearby. When a minute of restless searching yielded no results, Merlin's frayed control over his irritation snapped in a rather petulant way.

"What the hell is this?" He groused loudly, brandishing the arrow in his outstretched hand. He turned in a circle, continuing the fruitless search for his super spy shadow. "I don't know what the hell you think you're doing, but leave me the hell alone. Those damn books didn't do anything to you, and neither have I!" He all but shouted to the mostly empty street.

A bloke walking his dog across the way picked up his pace with the concerned glance in Merlin's direction, but the warlock didn't much bloody care how raving he looked at the moment. He was trying to make a _point_ , dammit!

A point that was, admittedly, difficult to make without demonstrating his power, but, well, equal parts complaining and not demonstrating his powers might work out just as well.

"I find one of these again," Merlin tossed the arrow onto the ground, breath coming out in short, annoyed pants. "And I will shove it up your arse the next time I see you, whether you're saving the world or not. I won't even feel bad about it."

Turning on his heel, Merlin stalked off in the direction of his hotel, intent on walking off his anger.

He'd made it three blocks before a high pitched whistle ended in a dull _thunk_ as an arrow appeared in the sidewalk, right in front of him.

There was a short message attached to it.

_"Don't leave town." }-- > :( _

Somewhere in Canada, the echo of Merlin's frustrated, outraged cry could be heard.

* * *

 

There really wasn't much left that could ruin Merlin's vacation more, at this point, so he figured that keeping up with his health would be among the things that he could hold on to in the absence of decent tea, a place to research and a hotel room free of judgment and not so subtle surveillance.

The early morning in New York was cool, but not foggy or accompanied by the same chill as the mornings in England, so he relished the not so brisk air in his lungs as he ran leisurely through the city streets.

He'd really been trying to keep his brain occupied with other pursuits since the embarrassingly obvious and unfruitful attempt on his life via reference stacks, but it hadn't been quite as successful as he'd have liked. For one, he did have to return to reading Poe for a good few pages of his dissertation, and for another, he'd cooped himself up in said surveilled room for the better part of a week in an effort to restrain himself from seeking out Hawkeye and preemptively making good on his threat.

Catching a couple of maids in the act of restocking his bar with full bottles—not the small, single glasses usually reserved for hotel bars—of Riesling and Gewürztraminer was maybe a bit of a wake-up call.

Because first of all, what was it about him that screamed _'white wine'_ and not _'WHISKEY'_ or, at the very least _'red, not too dry'?_

And so he jogged. And ran. Alternating between the two depending on how furious at either himself or the not-so-nameless Avenger that was dogging his thoughts as he did so.

Central Park loomed to his left, and against his better judgment when he'd told himself he'd only run the city streets for an hour or so, he made the detour towards the siren song of the limited greenery and vegetable life that the city of skyscrapers and pollution had to offer.

The steadily rising sun and the pleasant chirping of birds—not pigeons—he realized was more comforting and steadying than the unrelenting slog through metal and concrete and litter that he'd been stepping through and around through the first part of his jog. It wasn't until he'd found himself deviating from the sidewalks and worn paths, into the grasses and between trees that he'd realized what he'd been missing all this time.

The earth. His magic nearly swelled within him at relief, and he laughed a little out loud as he felt himself soaking in the muted song of the flowers and trees as they swayed around him, still damp from an evening drizzle that had swept through the city hours earlier.

Of course, how could he have forgotten? Magic resided within every living element of the Earth, and his own magic craved communion with it. Centuries ago it had not been difficult to seek solace in the groves, gardens or forests to linger and glean wisdom from these elemental creatures even older and wiser than he, but now... now within cities of metal, glass and stone, even more removed from their origins than Camelot itself, he found himself growing irritable without their company.

It had been too long since he'd sat among the trees and flowers, soaking up their life and purity to rejuvenate a soul he seldom remembered he had. It was then he realized, his weeks stuffed into alcoves with the dead remnants of trees and soil, electricity and clacking plastic keys and fermented fruit, that he'd failed again in his duties as one of the last priests of the Old Religion and commander of the elements: to commune with them and grant his offerings as he accepted their soothing power in return.

Where he was almost reluctant before, Merlin gratefully sank down to rest in the damp grass beneath a great Rowan tree.

The only of its kind here—alone—Merlin thought, reclining against the glistening bark and closing his eyes and ears to the noise of the city and its inhabitants, content for awhile to rest within this coccoon of nature and glimmering magic for a time.

_Emrys._

It was barely a whisper, but he stroked his hand over the thick grass beneath him and sighed, guilty, almost, _yes. I am here._

Slowly, at the pace of a tree greater and wiser than he, for as young as it was in comparison, he felt a warm, heady glow begin to seep into him from his back to his fingers where they touched the plants around him.

One thing Tolkien had gotten right. Trees did everything slowly.

He basked in it, though, that warmth. The inalterable, steadfast feeling of the Earth and its subjects feeding him and being fed in return. It was unlike nearly anything else he had experienced—more filling than a meal after a fast, headier than sex—feeling the tendrils of life reaching out to him from the smallest of grass blades at his hand to the greatest of mighty tree limbs, reaching for him through the ground from their roots as far away as the forests in the great, snowy North.

Yes, it had been much too long.

Sitting there, power his own and not thrumming through his body as he caught his breath and sweat cooled on his brow, Merlin offered a few words in exchange.

_“Fy ngweision. Fy meistri. Derbyn a rhoi cymaint ydych yn.”_

It was a paltry offering, given all that he had done and seen since he'd last communed with the elements in these past years, but he offered it nonetheless, knowing that the reaching he felt in his own soul and the life around him would not begrudge him the heartsickness that had plagued him long before they had come to be.

_You are tired, Emrys._

He felt it then, the voice of the tree at his back stronger than the others around, and lifted his other hand to rest on the warm bark at his shoulder.

"Yes," he whispered, perhaps aloud, perhaps in the voice of the wind that ruffled his hair and the leaves of the Rowan in turn. "I am so tired."

An ant crawled unhindered across his fingers; even this smallest of lives leaving a hint of offering as its armored flesh gleamed black in the early sunlight, tiny legs carrying it on in its task to find food for its queen and family.

_Rest, Emrys._

A small surge of power and light bloomed in his chest and spread through his limbs.

_Your heart is weary. We shall carry it for a time. Rest, now._

Tears prickled at Merlin's eyes as he felt an echo across the land, the oceans, of another Rowan, far older than this child behind him, send life and comfort from its sentry post in a forest near a lake that few knew contained such magicks.

The lake was still, Arthur slept— _dead, dead, dead_ —and the vigil continued, even in his absence.

Merlin blinked in the light for a moment, taking in the warm glow of sunlight on the grass, the shadow of the tree, birdsong ringing in his ears, and silently, helplessly, agreed.

* * *

 

Nearly floating on the power that had restored what he hadn't realized he'd lost, Merlin ran through the steadily populating streets. His breath seemed calm even as he felt his legs sprinting beneath him, carrying him block after block through places he vaguely remembered and those he'd yet to see.

Half a block past a group of grumbling men in suits whose mutters hadn't had the chance to dampen Merlin's spirits, the warlock sensed another runner approaching from behind him.

He moved off to the right of the walk, not sparing a thought for whoever was running faster than him as he soared on this feeling he had missed and craved. After so long, things made sense. Thoughts shifted firmly and implacably in his mind. He would return to his room, pack his things, and be back to the UK before the dawn of the next day. Hell, he'd even pay the extra to get first class if the expedited flight caused a ruckus at the airport. All remnants of meddling Hawkeye and the Avengers would be left for others to deal with and he'd be back writing a dissertation and staking out an ancient lake in peace.

Yes, this was the vacation he'd needed. The wake-up call he'd been looking for. In all his resentful grumbling, his restlessness, his selfish flight to the New World—he needed to stop calling it that—he'd forgotten again where his destiny lay. He would wait and watch, and though he could not promise his will would hold for so long again, Merlin would take up the mantel of servant and vigilant once more.

It wasn't until about two blocks later that he realized the runner behind him was now the runner beside him, keeping pace with what he himself thought was a rather exuberant distance sprint.

Chancing to drag himself out of his blissful thoughts, Merlin looked over at the person running beside him, only to nearly stumble—though he didn't, covering up the almost trip with what he considered an especially fancy display of footwork that would seem deliberate, likely to anyone that was not this person—when he glimpsed the familiar blonde head and muscled forearms of the slightly shorter man beside him.

Deciding in an instant that he may as well run the bastard ragged if he insisted on keeping up with a sorcerer freshly rejuvenated by elemental strength, Merlin grinned to himself and picked up his pace, pulling ahead and dashing through an intersection with only a half-second to spare before the early morning rush hour barreled through behind him.

Several satisfying honks and shouts sounded behind him.

* * *

 

Slowing to a stop some miles later, having rounded back to Central Park and the bright sun reflecting off the green that lay within, Merlin stretched his back and turned his face to the sky, soaking in a more majestic and distant source of power with which he could never hope to compare.

He'd been at it for a couple minutes when dogged footsteps and ragged breathing found him once more, and Clint Barton collapsed to the ground near his feet.

Body rolling onto his back, Barton tossed an arm over his eyes to shield it from the same rays Merlin had been soaking in moments before, his chest heaving with exertion.

"Jesus... Christ," Barton panted, and seemed content to leave it there. No snarky words, no antagonistic promises, just the slight lift of an arm to shoot Merlin an incredulous and grudgingly respectful glare.

Merlin could only grin down at him. His magic was singing within him, a bright light burning away the ire of his previous encounters with this young, foolish man. Merlin stretched his arms over his head, turning his face once more to the sun's warmth.

"How are you... _standing_ ," Barton gasped the word like it was the most unbelievable thing he'd ever seen. "Oh god, I think I might puke," he groaned, still struggling for breath.

After a few more moments of glorious sun on his face, Merlin looked down at the man sprawled beneath him, golden hair tousled and stiff with sweat, and felt a measure of sadness for him; for the burden of what he'd witnessed and experienced because of Merlin, for the questions to which he'd never have the answers, for the darkened aura that spoke of sinister magicks he could not understand. Benign, now, but their scars remained. It was a thing he'd grown to see over the centuries. The imprint of sorcery lingered long after its effects had faded.

All of it made sense. Yes, Merlin had saved his life, but at the steep cost of Barton's peace of mind. Merlin's secrets were his to keep, his destiny—his duty, his never ending task—was his alone to bear, but he'd done enough to once again sow the seeds of his own deception across an ocean, especially for one who bore the mark of an alien warlock.

 _"One day, Hawkeye, you will know which battles to fight, and those to let pass,"_ he said, in place of anything more. Merlin couldn't be sure it was out loud and honestly didn't know if it would be better or worse if it weren't.

Slowly, he walked away from the still breathing, twitching form of the man on the grass, and sent a plea to the life and power around him.

_Spare him what you can. Ease his pain for a short while; it is because of me he suffers._

Fleeting and light, a breeze ruffled his sweat damp hair.

_His pain is his own, but as Emrys commands, so shall we obey._

Pausing on the crest of a small hill, Merlin glanced over his shoulder at the man lying on the ground behind him.

 _"Hvílast. Lækna,"_ he whispered, letting the breeze carry the advice of the Rowan to Clint Barton in the absence of a farewell.

He would know it as one, soon enough. Merlin would not be seeing him again.

**Author's Note:**

> Translations:
> 
>  
> 
>  _“Fy ngweision. Fy meistri. Derbyn a rhoi cymaint ydych yn” -_ My servants. My masters. Accept and give as you will.
> 
>  _"Hvílast. Lækna."_ Rest. Heal.
> 
> Kind of a mix of Welsh and Icelandic? I don't even know.
> 
> Posted for the one year anniversary of my first fic [Bussiness as usual, apparently.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/924163), to which this is the sequel.
> 
> To be honest, most of this has been sort of written in bursts over said past year. I'd be lying if I said I didn't hope to one day really make a fic out of this tiny little universe I've created, but things keep distracting me? Like Bucky Barnes and his sad face and his metal arm?!
> 
> Anyway, happy anniversary to me, and to my first fic on AO3.


End file.
